00:00:00.000I'm updating you on the celebrity-driven war on coal in the Crow's Nest Pass.
00:00:05.960I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
00:00:08.120What if your community voted 75% in support of a coal mining project
00:00:33.060and you stand to lose your home if this job doesn't come for you
00:00:37.080And then outside celebrity activists get involved to wage a high profile war on the coal mine that's coming to save you.
00:00:49.340Well, that's exactly what's happening in Blairmore, Alberta.
00:00:52.640It's on the edge of the Rockies in the Crow's Nest Pass.
00:00:55.480They've got a massive mine proposed and the people there are having their voices absolutely silenced by high profile celebrities, country music singers, in fact.
00:01:07.080like Corblund and George Canyon, they have decided that this community should not have this coal mine
00:01:16.660and they are involved in this citizen-led initiative process to collect signatures to put the question on a referendum, which is insane.
00:01:28.700The people in this town already had their referendum and they approved of it.
00:01:32.880Now, there's somebody out there who has taken up this cause, and he has spent a ton of time in the Crow's Nest Pass to ask the people there exactly what this coal mine would mean to them.
00:01:45.020And it's my friend Robbie Picard from Oil Sand Strong, and he joins me today to update us on his work.
00:04:39.120So I am just shocked that these very wealthy people that are opposing the coal mine, and I don't ever want to be in a fight with ranchers versus coal workers because I think they're both important, but let's just be honest.
00:04:54.260You have a very rich municipality picking on a very poor one, and I am blown away when I say, hey, well, this person can't put their kid through college or going to lose their home.
00:05:05.180Well, that's just the cost of of of how not having coal.
00:05:12.140Now, tell us about the people behind the war on coal, because there is a citizen led initiative, a referendum petition right now being canvassed to stop the proposed coal mine there.
00:05:27.920And it's being done by some high profile people.
00:05:31.200And those people actually don't live there.
00:05:34.200no they don't and this what it is basically it has to do with grazing rights and there's a group
00:05:42.560of people who do not want it because it could affect their grazing right so they're getting
00:05:47.500these celebrities of like you know core blunt and and whatever the other the other country singer is
00:05:53.040and then they're they're trying to but none of them live there and they i i've spent a lot of
00:05:58.320time in that community not everybody supports it i there's a people that don't support it but the
00:06:02.620vast majority of people that live in the Blairmore, you know, Crosnest Pass area, they support this
00:06:08.620project. They want the project. And I think here's the real kicker. The tax base in the
00:06:16.940Crosnest Pass, 80, over 80% comes from residential homes. That's what pays for the water, the sewer,
00:06:26.140the garbage removal event space. I want to put that in perspective on a flipping. Fort McMurray,
00:06:32.34095 percent of our taxes don't come from residents it comes from industry industry is why we can
00:06:38.560have mcdonald island park or kaufland recreation center or ice rinks you name it right and the
00:06:44.980town because it's so deprived of anything because it's in this weird little place in between bc
00:06:50.980coal mines they don't get the benefits of industry now the other country music singer who has joined
00:06:58.780the fight is george canyon and that was kind of a surprise to me to see george canyon opposing
00:07:05.460this proposed coal mine because he has formerly run as a nomination candidate for the conservative
00:07:11.980party of canada and to see him on the other side of this fossil fuel development and these good
00:07:19.500blue collar well-paying salt of the earth jobs was a bit of a shock to me actually it was a bit
00:07:26.340of a shock to me the same way Corb Lund was Corb Lund for people who don't know he his most popular
00:07:32.120song was a song that celebrates the grit and essentialness of our oil and gas workers and
00:07:40.840then to see him turn around and oppose coal jobs when it's you know really the same story
00:07:47.280surprising to me but you know he's got NDP friends from what I understand but George Canyon
00:07:52.640to join this fight sort of blew my mind yeah i like look i think what this has to boil down to
00:08:00.160is everyone needs to have a conversation we need to get the facts because i'm from my understanding
00:08:06.380is that the water release is going to be fine they're going to treat the water and i've been
00:08:12.360researching salium a lot and a lot of health products have it there's a shortage of it for
00:08:17.660cattle the cattle are deprived of it and they need it so the the water argument to me is not adding
00:08:24.720up what i see is you got i mean george canyon if you google his net worth or you know check it out
00:08:32.060in chat to chat ai or whatever he's worth 10 million dollars and has a massive ranch i don't
00:08:37.420know what core lund is worth i mean he doesn't look like he's worth a ton of money george canyon
00:08:41.800kind of does he's got that statuous like rich cowboy rancher you know for blend kind of looks
00:08:47.180like a disheveled folks here but either way you know i don't judge but that being said um
00:08:53.800it seems to me like a bunch of really rich established people who kind of have
00:08:58.100money are trying to stop not rich self-of-the-earth miners from making enough money so they can
00:09:06.760better their lives and i think and i'm shocked to this day like it's not and i'm not just i'm
00:09:14.600fighting for coal across the board every coal town in alberta that has been shut down and picked on
00:09:21.580but i am still shocked how you know an elite person can be just like no empathy for the coal
00:09:28.420miner like i met this guy he's been in um he's been in that area since 1967 and uh he said like
00:09:37.040when they shut down the miami tire place cradled and he has a lot of opinion and he runs a
00:09:42.600reclamation business and he does a lot of reclamation of the minds and when you talk to
00:09:47.920him he's highly intelligent and some of these like you know like these woke environmentalists
00:09:52.500because he went to a bar and had a beer like how many beer did that take and they were really
00:09:56.280going for insulting him and i thought wow you guys are so out of touch the least one he didn't
00:10:04.920even finish the beer two um i bought it because he had a bud and i didn't want to put bud in my
00:10:10.860video you know that's why he flipped it and i thought but here he is when you listen to him
00:10:15.820talk he's far more intelligent than i thought for a second based on looking at him like he had a
00:10:23.880history he understood the community he cares about the community and then when i was there
00:10:28.240people were literally coming to me on the street and saying hey thank you thank you because they
00:10:33.660don't have the ability to fight korban or george canyon you know what i mean they don't they're
00:10:38.200not that they're not that this is a different fight for them they're just trying to live their
00:10:43.320lives and when 80 of your bills are paid by property taxes your community is this close
00:10:51.420to cradling so here here is my message to everybody out there industry pays taxes taxes
00:11:00.760pay for things it's a complete different argument and i and listen i'm not saying i'm for autonomous
00:11:08.180haul trucks i don't believe there's gonna be in these situations but autonomy is something we all
00:11:13.000have to face but it's more than just the jobs it provides a tax base so the community can have
00:11:20.720services it can have things like i live in fort mcmurray and we we are fine for services right
00:11:28.340we have a lot here because of industry and the jobs are also important i think you're going to
00:11:33.900have 400 jobs immediately the spin-off jobs will come i mean there's already a beautiful golf course
00:11:40.600in that community now when they had to move the golf course and it is absolutely beautiful this
00:11:45.840is so much and then if you research these coal mines all over the world and when they open it
00:11:51.080they're run responsibly the communities benefit and i would make an argument i i've never seen
00:11:56.920just boom here's a golf course here's your clubhouse there you go that is pretty good and
00:12:02.500that area is beautiful you know and i mean and there's so much more like like tonight actually
00:12:08.500in my office i'm hosting the the alberta tourism minister and um so he's coming here tonight and
00:12:14.560one of the things we're going to discuss is like how do we get a relationship between industry
00:12:19.440and a little bit of bonus tourism because you know what tourism never went to crow's nest pass
00:12:23.860after they promised them all this tourism there's no tourism there not like you see at jasper or
00:12:30.400or Banff or Kananaskis and like you can have both industry and tourism can work together
00:12:37.320yeah it I want the people of Blairmore to have what Fort McMurray has or for that matter Cold
00:12:44.320Lake or Bonneville or any of these other oil and gas communities where you roll up to the local
00:12:50.120hockey rink and there's a big sign that says sponsored by Synovus but this would be sponsored
00:12:54.620by the coal community it's not just the tax base it's the sponsorship that comes along with that
00:13:02.160from the big companies and these celebrities they can send their kids to play hockey and whatever
00:13:08.940rink they want they can send their kids to elite hockey schools but you know the what this means
00:13:15.480to a small town is just enormous now what what do the people in town think of these celebrities
00:13:23.600from outside telling them they can't have this industry i've never seen so much hate that i saw0.93
00:13:33.280before before i mean it was i saw an article where someone called him a woke bastard yeah it was
00:13:39.800insane um and i'm heading back there right away i did a few news and then i'm going to be doing a
00:13:44.580big thing but that being said um i've never seen such hate and just like they want this to work